International Courant
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks throughout a gathering with members of the AI sector on the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris, France, on Could 21, 2024.
Yoan Valat | Episode | Getty Photos
PARIS – France is touting itself as the subsequent synthetic intelligence superpower.
The Viva Expertise convention in Paris final week was buzzing with speak about how far France has come as a frontrunner in AI.
There was quite a lot of discuss surrounding French AI firm H, previously known as Holistic, which raised $220 million in a seed funding spherical from traders together with US tech large Amazon and Google’s billionaire ex-CEO Eric Schmidt.
A typical theme for French AI corporations receiving giant sums of cash is that they’re including US tech heavyweights to their shareholder lists.
Earlier this month, France acquired a flood of recent personal funding, led by a 4 billion euro ($4.4 billion) dedication from Microsoft, the most important ever in France.
AI all over the place at Viva Tech
At Viva Tech, AI was all over the place. Previous the large, vivid pink ‘VIVA’ signal out entrance, there was a complete alley known as ‘AI Avenue’, surrounded by US tech corporations like Salesforce and AWS.
Generative AI was all over the place – even from corporations you would not count on.
For instance, French magnificence large L’Oreal showcased an AI-powered magnificence assistant known as “BeautyGenius” on a big sales space close to the middle of the Porte de Versailles convention venue.
Viva Tech’s success has grow to be symbolically vital for France as a part of its bid to grow to be a number one know-how and AI hub to rival these of the US and China.
“France is the chief in synthetic intelligence in Europe,” Bruno Le Maire, France’s finance minister, informed CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal on Viva Tech final week.
He made it clear that whereas France is getting a serving to hand from American tech giants, “we wish our personal synthetic intelligence to be created and developed in France.”
Referring to Microsoft’s funding in France, Le Maire mentioned: “Microsoft could be very welcome in our nation. However the problem for us is to have our personal gadgets, our personal scientists… and we’re working very arduous for that.”
France boasts a robust AI analysis and improvement ecosystem, dwelling to key amenities similar to Meta’s Fb AI Analysis heart and Google’s AI Analysis Middle in Paris, in addition to main universities.
“France is among the most vibrant innovation facilities in Europe,” Etienne Grass, France director of Capgemini Invent, Capgemini’s digital innovation arm, informed CNBC. “The nation is fostering a thriving startup scene, marked by vital advances in AI,” Grass added.
Imran Ghory, associate at Blossom Capital, mentioned that whereas France has an important observe file on the subject of analysis and academia, it has struggled to draw high quality expertise to “huge corporations”.
AI labs from Meta and Google have created “a coaching floor for college kids and researchers to find out how main tech corporations look and work from the within,” Ghory mentioned.
“We are actually seeing the fruits of this as many researchers and AI engineers start to arrange their very own corporations.”
Battle for technological management
French President Emmanuel Macron informed CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin in an interview final week that his nation is “the chief within the know-how business in Europe.” Nevertheless, he famous that Europe is “lagging behind” the US and that the continent wants extra “huge gamers”.
“It’s insane to have a world the place the large giants solely come from China and the US,” Macron mentioned on the Elysee Palace. He praised Mistral, the French AI firm backed by US tech large Microsoft, and H.
Final week, Macron met with Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, Yann LeCun, Meta’s chief AI scientist, and James Manyika, Google’s senior vice chairman of know-how and society, amongst others on the Elysee to debate methods to Paris a worldwide AI hub.
Maurice Levy, CEO of promoting and PR large Publicis Groupe, informed CNBC’s Karen Tso that he thinks France has the potential to grow to be a prime 5 nation for AI improvement. Levy mentioned France is “decided” to slender the hole between the US, China and Europe on the subject of AI.
France “could possibly be a part of the highest 5 nations on the planet in AI,” after the US, China, Israel and Britain, Levy mentioned in a TV interview final week. He pointed to H’s large funding spherical for example of the momentum surrounding French AI proper now.
Levy mentioned about 40% of tech demos on Viva Tech had been AI. AI is “one thing that isn’t simply taking off, however has already taken off,” he mentioned.
In a fireplace dialogue final week, Google’s Manyika mentioned that a lot of the innovation the corporate has delivered to the desk comes from engineers in France.
He mentioned Google’s just lately launched Gemma AI, a light-weight, open-source mannequin, was closely developed on the US web large’s AI hub in Paris.
In line with knowledge from Dealroom, France claimed a roughly 20% share of complete European funding for AI startups in 2023, greater than the common of 15% of European funding going to AI startups throughout the bloc.
Nevertheless, France isn’t the European AI chief, in keeping with Dealroom, with UK corporations elevating greater than double the quantity of each AI and GenAI funding than France.
Innovation versus regulation
France’s Macron mentioned the problem for Europe is to speed up analysis and improvement in AI, whereas additionally regulating on an “applicable scale”.
Final week, the EU handed the AI Act, a groundbreaking regulation regulating synthetic intelligence.
Some know-how executives warned that Europe might hamper its AI ambitions with overly restrictive rules. France is among the many nations which have criticized the EU AI Act for being too restrictive on the subject of innovation.
Pascal Brier, Chief Innovation Officer of Capgemini, mentioned that whereas regulation is important to make sure AI doesn’t grow to be too highly effective, it is very important be sure that new legal guidelines such because the AI Act don’t inadvertently ‘kill’ innovation.
He mentioned regulators ought to keep away from the “precautionary precept” – the concept that AI makers ought to usually keep away from doing issues that would trigger hurt.
“There is not any means you’ll be able to cease AI – it is simply the top of the start,” Brier informed CNBC. “It will not cease there.”
France needs to grow to be a worldwide AI chief, with the assist of American Massive Tech
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